How to Raise the Resiliency in Your Child

The world is filled with people who become angry, toxic and vengeful when something bad happens to them (lose their job, money or a loved one, become divorced, etc.).  They become fixated on blaming others for their setback and strike out to hurt others to get revenge.  It can then take them an enormous amount of time to recover and get back on their feet.

Resilient people however, recover quickly.  They are able to heal emotionally faster and then become focused on what was their own part in the problem, how THEY can fix the problem and what THEY can do going forward to minimize the chances that this problem will reoccur.  Resilient people are less likely to hurt others or to find blame outside of themselves.

I believe that the majority of effective parents want to raise resilient children who will grow up to become resilient adults.  If you would like to join this group of parents, this article offers some suggestions on what your specific tasks are in raising a resilient child, even if you, yourself, are not as resilient as you’d like to be.  It may happen however, that through your efforts to implement what I’ve written here, you too may develop your own resiliency as a result of your work with your own children.

First, allow them to experience the feeling that “They can actually do things.”  It’s hard as a parent to stand back and allow our children to do things that either don’t make sense to us or things that we know our children will struggle with.  I’m not talking about anything that would endanger our children’s safety and well-being because it is definitely our job to do whatever it takes to keep them safe.  It’s all the other things they want to try that may drive us to say something or discourage them from doing. 

My son wanted to dye his hair green when he was about 11 years of age.  I said no because of the cost and lasting effect of the dye, but he came back with the desire to get green gel to put in his hair and get it to stand on end.  I reconsidered his request and let him raise the money to buy the gel even though I thought it was ridiculous and a waste of money.  He used it a total of three times and never touched it again.  When our child can try things out and make their own assessment, it increases their resiliency.

Avoid criticizing mistakes or gushing over their successes, big or small.  Doing either of these things robs them of developing a true sense of feeling confident about their own capabilities and skills.  When your child has an experience that is positive or negative, coach him to gain the most from the experience by asking him open ended questions such as, “How did that make you feel?” or “Why do you think that happened?” or “What will you do now?” or “Why do you think that person did/said that to you?”  The answers that come from inside of him are likely to carry more weight than your parental opinion.  And if he does ask you what you think, you can respond, but then turn it right back over to him by asking what he thinks.

Create opportunities to integrate your child with others; such as teams, church groups, associations and play dates with other children.  Resilient children develop a connection and the sense that they are not alone.  They learn to reach out to others for help or to assist those in need.  It is up to us to teach them that the world is a community and we are all capable of seeking or offering help.  It also helps them develop empathy and a caring nature toward others.  Lead your family in activities that serve others, such as volunteering at a soup kitchen or food pantry.  Serve or deliver Thanksgiving or Christmas meals to those who are less fortunate.  The example you set will remain with your child forever.

Teach your child to take a stand respectfully for others or for causes.  Help shape the character of your child by providing a good role model for your child to learn from.  Show up with your child at rallies, school committee meetings, or benefit events such as walk-a-thons or fund raisers.  Talk at family dinners and meetings about the issues that you stand for to set an example to inspire your children to also take their own stand.  Avoid behaviors that promote deceitfulness.  If your child answers the phone and announces that it is grandma and you really don’t want to talk to her, avoid teaching your child to lie by telling him to tell her that you’re not home.

Help your child adapt to the sensation of delayed gratification by learning that some things are earned and not awarded.  Use examples in your own life to illustrate the hard work you expended to attain certificates, awards or accomplishments.  Incorporate a budget plan in which your child earns and save money to buy the things he wants, rather than just going out and buying it all for him.  Avoid reacting to his claims that he needs something because everyone else has it.

Making everything fair or “all better” when your child doesn’t get what she had hoped for robs her of the negative feelings required for developing coping skills.  Resist the urge to run out and buy that medallion or trophy to lift your child’s spirits if she didn’t win the race or the spelling bee.  The experience of disappointment can lead to self-encouragement and self-control.  Uncomfortable situations for our children cause us great pain and discomfort, but trying to take that away only robs them of having that difficult experience required for healing or adaptability.

10 Things You Can Do to Stop Your Child's Addiction

It’s like a drug, they can’t get enough.  They’ll mysteriously forget about homework assignments just to get it.  They’ll fight you tooth and nail not to lose it.  It’s one of the biggest issues that reduces cooperation for many parents and if they could, they would pass up sleep and food just to have more of it.  What I’m talking about is entertainment media for children, and it is highly addictive.  It’s also referred to as SCREEN TIME and it exists in the form of video games, television shows, computer usage and the Internet, and it must be controlled, supervised and allowed in moderation.  If parents would just understand and implement this, they would get a bonus of more cooperation from their children.  Chores would be done as planned and homework would be completed as agreed.

I was hired as a parent coach by a family recently.  At our first meeting, they listed the top five challenges they were experiencing with their oldest child.  This 1o-year-old was not coming to the table for dinner when called, not following through with her chores, and not doing her homework after school as she was instructed.  My first question was, “So what is she doing instead?”  The parents responded with, “She’s playing video games.”

I asked these well-meaning parents two questions: “how would their little girl know that it’s time to do these things?” and “ if you remind her when it’s time, how do you do that?”  Their first responses were, “she should know enough to do it,” and “we keep reminding her of what she must do.”  My first response to them was that you can’t expect a child to know when to do something when the addictive activities that call to her are not managed and limited.  Nor can you expect yelling, reprimanding, and reminding to work either.  All this does is send the little girl into “parent deafness” and drives her to continue to ignore her parents.

According to a recent article that appeared on numerous news Web sites, British research is warning parents that too much screen time in childhood will lead to a greater level of screen addiction as they mature.   Watching something can have the same chemical effect in the same regions of the brain as substance abuse and gambling.  These activities result in the release of the ‘feel good’ chemical Dopamine that acts as the reward for doing something you enjoy.  This leads to the drive in the brain (addiction) to want to engage in the addictive behavior more often.

There is well-established literature showing the adverse effects of screen experience on the cognitive development of children under three and, as a result, the US Pediatric Association has recommended no screen time before this age.  As children get older, screen time should be managed and allowed in moderation.  Too much screen time can interfere with being physically active, reading, doing homework, spending time with family, and even playing with friends.  Experts have even tied screen time to problems with attention span in children.  It’s becoming such an issue that technology addiction centers are beginning to pop up around the country.

The sad realization is that parents are providing handheld devices more freely and at younger and younger ages.  While out to dinner one evening, I noticed a family of four at a nearby table.  The children appeared to be about six and eight years of age.  Everyone was glued to an iPhone or some sort of handheld screen the entire time they were at the restaurant and hardly anyone spoke during that time together.  This common incident is proof that families are losing the connection they need to bond and to develop healthy communication.  When I've asked parents in the past why they provide these devices to their children, many have said to me that “it’s no big deal, all kids have them and besides, it keeps our kids busy and out of our hair.”  It might seem like no big deal to many, but at what cost?  Look at the effects of what it’s doing to the children and the family!

Divorce and separation continues to rise.  Many of the parents in my parenting classes are raising their children part-time, on their own.  When I bring up the importance of managing screen time, I’m usually met with resistance because the mom or dad does not want to upset the child.  The parent is afraid of hearing the words, “Daddy (or Mommy) doesn't have stupid rules about my cell phone (or the computer) like you do.  I wish I could go live with him (or her)!”  This fear of losing their child or their child’s love becomes the greater force to refrain from implementing limitations to the addiction.

If you’re a parent who is ready to step up and manage screen time for your children.  Here are 10 things to begin implementing immediately to fight this dangerous addiction:

• Place computers that the child uses, in a common area for you to monitor
• Install monitoring software on the computer if your child is able to use it when home alone
• Establish a 30 – 60 minute daily limitation on screen time during the week
• Ban screen devices from bedrooms (TVs, computers, and handheld devices)
• Don’t allow games on the same electronic reader device that your child uses for books
• Secure your wireless router and put parent control on all your children’s’ devices
• Handheld devices should be “signed out” for use and then “signed back in”
• Smart phones aren’t for children or young teens and should be monitored
• Walk your talk and limit your own screen time to set a healthy example
• When you implement these changes, don’t get angry when your child objects

A Valentine-A-Day for Your Children

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, here are 8 tips you can use, one each day leading up to the big day, for demonstrating love to your children.  

Using a family meeting, have everyone create a craft project that represents love to them.  Provide a wide selection of construction paper and craft supplies and allow your children to create whatever comes to mind.  Put the creations on display for everyone to see and enjoy, and photograph them to look at for many years to come.

Compose a poem about your child or describing how much you love her. Print it off on special preprinted paper with a border that can be purchased at office supply stores. Frame it and hang it on your child’s bedroom wall. You could even include the child’s picture or her foot or handprints if you had them done earlier. Sign it and read it to her nightly.

Have a movie night with your kids, complete with big pillows to snuggle up with and a big bowl of popcorn. The one difference in making this night special is that the movie being featured will be the home movies you have of your children!

Help your child plan a V-Day party with all of her friends. For one activity at the party, provide a personalized mailbox (or bag) for each child. On blank slips of paper, have each child write down words that describe what they like about each of the other kids, one child per slip of paper. They will deposit them in each others’ mailboxes.

Every Sunday night, schedule a date with each of your children for the week to come. Put it on your calendar and tell your child so they will have something to look forward to. Scheduling in these dates ahead of time ensures they will happen. Then everything else that is less important can fill in around them. Why not schedule a date with your significant other as well?

Take a picture of you and your child, frame it, and then give it to your child to put in his or her room on the dresser or night table.  If you have more than one child, create one for each of them.  For an older child, put a picture of the two of you in a locket that the child can wear.  This will also help calm a child who feels anxious when being away from the parent.

Find a child’s illustrated book that sends a message of love and commit to reading it to your children every night, leading up to Valentine’s Day.  My favorite is the book LOVE YOU FOREVER by Robert Munsch and illustrated by Sheila McGraw.  It sends the message that I’ll always love you unconditionally, no matter how you behave and well into your adult years.

Toddlers to teens love to be surprised. Hide a small valentine, an encouraging note, or a small valentine chocolate somewhere for them to find each day leading up to Valentine’s Day. Get creative and mix it up.  You could also leave a note each day in one place that contains clues to helping them find what you’ve hidden.

10 Reasons to Keep Kids Off of Facebook

I was in my Philadelphia hotel room when the newsflash appeared on the television screen: “13-year-old Philadelphia-area girl is missing,” and the authorities were pleading for anyone to come forward with information on her whereabouts.  The story was updated the very next night when the local news station reported that the girl was found in a Washington D.C. bus station in the company of a 20-year-old male whom she met online on Facebook.

Over the next few days I saw various interviews with the girl’s parents as they demanded justice for the male predator who was responsible for convincing her to leave her home with him.  The authorities apprehended him without incident and charged the young man with “corruption of a minor.”  Perhaps her parents should be arrested with him on the same charge.  How was it that the 13-year-old girl was able to meet him on Facebook without her parents knowing about it?  They were obviously not monitoring her activity and allowed her to interact on the social media site freely.

That's where monitoring tools come in to play to help today's parents.  I encourage parents to refrain from providing a Facebook page to their children or young teens, but if they feel like they have to provide them with one, at the very least, consider subscribing to an online monitoring service that can track all of your child's activity.  One particular service, CreepSquash, provides the most comprehensive monitoring solution so that you can have peace of mind anytime your kids are on Facebook. Their innovative technology works from anywhere your child accesses the site, and answers the call to help parents become aware so they can take action before it's too late, unlike the case of the young girl from Pennsylvania in my opening paragraph.

Protecting Kids on Facebook Never Got Easier. Try CreepSquash FREE.

If you’re a parent, you may have a child or teen who has been “chipping away” at your boundaries  to convince you to allow her to have a Facebook page.  Because she continues to   make the case that all of her friends have a page and she wants to fit in, you may have given in or are heading in that direction.  Here are 10 reasons to consider keeping to your NO.

1. 1.  Images and words put out on the Internet don’t go away and can have long lasting impacts on a person’s future reputation.  According to the organization ChildrenOnline.org, 16-year-olds have a higher level of maturity that allows them to be less impulsive and to understand that their actions have dramatic and devastating consequences on their lives and the lives of others.
2. Predators are lurking on social media sites and prey on unsuspecting and gullible children and teens.  Anyone can create a false profile that makes them appear to be someone they aren’t.
3. Creating an email address for a child or teen and giving them the password provides them with the power to create multiple profiles/identities on Facebook and other social media sites.  Many children have a Facebook page their parents know about and others they don’t.
4. Your children will be exposed to a greater level of influence from peers with little or no supervision, resulting in your child learning about topics or subject matters you would normally not want them to be exposed to.
5. Parents who start out with good intentions to monitor their children’s activity on Facebook initially see that their child is behaving appropriately.  Then as time passes, the parent usually monitors less and less, while the child becomes more curious and experimental.  Before too long, the parent is not monitoring and the child may be communicating or behaving inappropriately due to the influence of peer pressure.
6. Focusing on what friends are doing can easily turn into an addiction that could take precedence over homework, chores, reading, writing, or other creative activities.  Ask yourself, “What child would pick working on a challenging homework assignment when he gets home, rather than logging on and checking Facebook?”
7. According to ChildrenOnline.org, “Thousands of scams are perpetrated daily on popular social networks. Though teens and children may be savvy and knowledgeable about using technology, it doesn't mean that they are experienced and savvy enough to recognize a scam or when they are being manipulated to click a link leading to malware. Generally, older teens are more knowledgeable about computer threats and risks and are, therefore, more likely to be cautious.”
8. Adults, teens and children are constantly posting inappropriate or adult-natured information or links on Facebook.  Children and young teens exposed to inappropriate information are not ready to deal with it and can experience long-lasting negative effects to their self-image and their view of the world around them.  They suddenly appear to be maturing faster than they should be.
9. For many of us adults, the reach of bullying usually ended in the late afternoon when we arrived home from school.  But thanks to social media sites like Facebook, our children could now be subjected to bullying 24 hours a day.
10. Children and young teens don’t understand the importance of protecting private information online.  In a survey completed by ChildrenOnline.org, 40.2% of all children surveyed admitted to sharing their password with a friend.  Releasing private information online that reveals any clues to the identity of a child could result in threats to her safety and well being.

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Luckily, the girl from a small town in Pennsylvania who I wrote about at the beginning of this article was found unharmed, but do a Google search on children and Facebook and you will find numerous articles about children who were abducted by predators and who were not as fortunate.  

Parents own the responsibility to keep their children safe and a child’s safety trumps any other reason for wanting to give a child a Facebook account.  Think twice before giving in to your child’s pressure to open an account for them until they are old enough to make smart decisions on their own.  

CreepSquash's web-based application scans Facebook activities, analyzes the data and sends automatic e-mail alerts when there is a potential threat or suspicious activity that parents should be aware of.  Don't become the parent standing in front of the new camera's, pleading for the safe return of your child or teen.  Protect your child by staying on top of all his or her activity with Facebook before something bad happens.

20 New Christmas Angels Were Welcomed into Heaven This Morning

Tragedy happens all around us, but when it involves innocent children there are few words that can express the pain any caring person feels.  This morning, a shooter took the lives of 20 innocent school children including several teachers and staff members at a small town school here in Connecticut.  That means Heaven accepted 20 new little angels this morning.  If your own children haven’t heard about it, they most likely will.  Here are some tips on how to help your children handle the news of this unthinkable tragedy.

First and foremost it’s important that you settle any fears your children may have.  They are torn between the worlds of fantasy and reality, so it may be very difficult for them to tell the difference between what is real and what isn’t.  Make every effort to listen to them carefully and with 100% of your attention.  It is important that you help them feel safe and calm.  Sometimes they may fear that what happened to the children at this school will happen to them.

Minimize (if not eliminate) any news coverage or discussion about the tragedy.  The less they hear about it the better it will be for them.  Refrain from having the news on when they are present at home or in the car while you’re driving.  Too much exposure will overwhelm them and generate more fearful feelings that it could come to their school

Allow yourself to grieve privately.  Your children look to you and your feelings as a guide on how they should feel.  If you are feeling sad about this event and they notice, your children will feel sadder.  Allow yourself to grieve in private, away from your children.  Allow a friend or family member to stay with your children while you find the time to be alone to let your feelings out about this tragedy.  Avoid keeping it all bottled up inside.

Take measures to pull your family closer together over the next few days.  Cancel less important activities and create family time to help your child feel more loved.  Take measures to feel gratitude that this did not happen to your family and hold and love your children a little more than usual.  It will help to further settle your child’s fears and help you deal with the sadness we are all feeling about this tragic event.

Finally, use this occurrence to be sure that you are taking all possible measures to ensure your child’s safety where ever she goes.  It is doubtful that the families who lost children in this massacre could have done anything different to avoid what happened.  But tragedies come in all forms so take a closer look at all possible risks that could affect your child’s safety and well being.

8 Tips for Happier Holidays with Kids

It’s time once again to begin preparing for the holidays and gearing up for family, fun, and festivals.  The kids will be getting excited and home for school vacation.  Here are eight tips for ensuring a happier holiday season.

TIP # 1:  Good Behavior in Someone Else’s Home

At some point prior to arriving at someone else’s home for a holiday party, get to your child’s eye level and go over the rules for being at the party.  You may even ask them to explain the rules to you and don’t be surprised if they already know.  Throughout the event, acknowledge them every time you witness the behavior you want.  If their behavior has been a problem in the past, tell them there will be a consequence to bad behavior and that consequence will be leaving the party.  If you choose this option, be ready to implement it immediately, and don’t punish them.  The punishment is the departure itself and your complete silence on the drive home.

TIP # 2:  Reduce the Toys and Gifts

A few weeks before the holiday season arrives, allow your child to lead an activity to thin out the usable toys and clothes they already have and then donate them to a local charity.  Let your child have as much participation in the process, especially the delivery to the donation center.  Commit to buying your children less toys.  Too many can create visual chaos and excess stimulation, and certainly do not teach crucial lessons of moderation and limits.

TIP # 3:  Take Care of Yourself

When you become stressed over the holidays, your appearance of being frantic and frazzled will be felt by the children and they too will begin to simulate it in their own way.  Take time out for yourself to recharge your batteries.  You need extra rest, exercise, and healthy eating, ingredients for greater self-control and patience.

TIP # 4:  Teach Children Gratitude

Make it a priority to get your family involved in a giving exercise this holiday season.  Donate your time to volunteer for a charitable organization by wrapping gifts for a gift collection agency, delivering a meal to a shut-in, or serving the hungry at a soup kitchen.   This act of compassion will remain with your children for a very long time.  During the thanksgiving holiday, my family and I would prepare and deliver a meal to an elderly person living alone.  I’ll never forget the year we delivered our dinner to an elderly lady who was so grateful for our gift, she cried as we left.  My son was silent as we drove away and he had tears welling in his eyes.

TIP # 5:  Don’t Over Schedule

During the holidays we automatically think about wanting to connect and be with family and friends.  But if past holidays have not been fond memories because of over scheduling, reconsider your plans for this year and commit to simplifying the family calendar or take a vacation away from home.  This move may require having to say no to some invitations or changing routines.  One family we connect with often makes it a point to avoid the holiday rush.  They plan plenty of get-togethers throughout the year and then disappear at Thanksgiving and/or Christmas to take cruises, go to Disney, or travel to see family out of state.

TIP # 6:  Set Realistic Expectations for the Kids

Let’s face it; November and December are exciting times for the kids and stressful or busy times for you.  This guarantees that your children are going to behave differently and it will be a challenge getting them to cooperate and remain calm.  Clarify your boundaries and rules and be patient when their excitement gets in the way.  Remind yourself about the true meaning of the holidays; it’s not about having the perfect family.  A big mistake parents make is remembering the holidays from their childhood and trying to recreate them today.

TIP # 7:  Create the Reverence of New Traditions

Participating in family traditions that were passed down can be fun and exciting, but it can also add to the stress of the holidays when it means having to recreate complex meals, trips, and events that originally belonged to someone else.  Take bold steps to create new traditions for your immediate family that will leave lasting impressions, regardless of how simple they might be.  When my children were young, we started a new tradition of allowing the kids to open one gift on Christmas Eve.  We intentionally gave them new pajamas in this one special gift and they would be the pajamas they would wear to bed that night.  Each year after that, I came up with fun and creative ways of disguising the gift to keep them guessing, because they knew what they would find in the packages.  Creating new and fun traditions and faithfully celebrating them each year with consistency will teach your children how to do it themselves when they have families of their own.

TIP # 8:  Be the Person You Want Your Children to Be

Finally, there is no better way to teach your children how to enjoy the holidays than to demonstrate being the person you want them to be.  The most powerful training your children will ever have is the observations they make of your behavior on a daily basis.  Work hard to remain calm and loving throughout the holidays.  When you find yourself on the threshold of an emotional reaction to someone else’s behavior, ask yourself if what you’re about to say or do will bring your family closer together, or create more distance.  Being close of course, is what the holidays are all about!

A Must Have If You Want More Cooperation From Kids

Would you like to know about an easy-to-use device that will help you get your kids to cooperate more?  My friends over at TimeTimer.com created the perfect device to help parents transition their kids from one activity to another and it is incredibly effective with parenting.  I’m talking about the visual timer from TimeTimer.com.  Many of you may already be familiar with the desk top and wall mount models, but I’d like to introduce you to the new Time Timer Watch Plus® that you wear on your wrist.  You’ll notice in the image to the left, that I’m wearing one of these great watches myself and right from the start, what I love most about it is the precision.  The Time Timer Watch Plus® provides you with the exact minute and second as time passes so that you know the exact amount of time you have remaining.

Unlike audible timers that simply count down to zero and ring when time has expired, the Time Timer® allows you to turn all or just a portion of the clock face red, based on how much maximum time you want to start with.  It runs on a standard battery and using an accurate timing mechanism, the red disc portion of the clock face shrinks as time passes.  This creates a quick visual representation of the amount of time remaining for the activity at hand.  The Time Timer Watch Plus® works the same way that the desktop and wall-mountable models do, except for the fact that it uses a digital representation of the clock face and the red time disc.  

I first discovered the Time Timer® many years ago when I was searching for a way to keep myself on time at the front of the room for a parent lecture, or on stage conducting a keynote.  I found that I sometimes get so lost in my presentation that there is a risk I might go over my allotted time, or not space my material well enough.  The large Time Timer® was the device I began using to help me stay on track.  It was large enough that I could see it all the way at the back of a large hotel conference room or auditorium.  No one likes to sit through a presentation and discover that the speaker is going over the allotted time.  When it does occur, the audience stops listening and becomes focused on matters such as, “Will I get out of here late?” or “Will the next speaker be cut short?”  The bottom line is that the audience is likely to become distracted and stop paying attention.  Timeliness is critical to the best speakers.

Another personal factor for me involves the way the brain works when a person becomes overwhelmed and stressed.  Researchers have shown that when the human brain is experiencing stress, some areas of the brain actually shut down and some functionality is temporarily lost.  Early in my speaking career, I noticed that I had great difficulty reading words on note cards or making sense of a clock face when I was conducting a difficult presentation and was feeling stressed.  That’s what makes the Time Timer® so effective.  It is much easier to take notice of how much of the red disc is remaining, rather than getting my brain to interpret the time on a clock or watch face.

It was soon after using my new Time Timer® that it dawned on me how powerful this device could be in parenting and gaining greater cooperation from children.  Because kids are so focused on the NOW and rarely anything beyond what’s happening at the moment, they don’t transition well.  That means they don’t like it when the adult walks up to them and says, “Come on… it’s time to go.”  All too often we see them throw a fit or begin to argue with the adult.  If you hope to be more successful as an adult who lives or works with children, give them a visual perspective of how much time they have to complete an activity and you’ll see the difference in the amount of cooperation you get.

Awesome parents are those who time their children’s entertainment electronics time.  Unfortunately, most of these well-intended parents are still using the microwave or range timer in the kitchen.  This means they are very likely to run into resistance when the timer runs out because children are unable to get a sense of the passing of time if they can’t see it.  That’s what makes the Time Timer® so effective; children can SEE the passing of time.  The results for the adults are children who are more likely to end an activity when the caregiver needs them to.  Parents, teachers, and even mental and physical health practitioners are now using the Time Timer® in their practice with children.  Watch this clip from my television show where I interviewed two seasoned preschool teachers who agreed with me on the effectiveness of using them in the classroom.

Some parents at my lectures have said to me, “I don’t think my child will take to this different kind of timer.”  One Dad even told me that he thought it might be difficult to get his son to adapt and abide by it.  I suggested that the father get a Time Timer® for himself and use it in his home office, just to see how it works.  Then something amazing happened (as I knew it would).  One day, the man’s little 5-year-old son walked into his dad’s office and noticed the Time Timer® sitting on the desk .  The little boy asked his father what it was and the man explained to the boy that it was a timer to help dad not stay on the telephone for too long.  The little boy then exclaimed, “No fair Dad… I want one!”

The Time Timer® desk top and wall mountable devices can be seen in classrooms, homes, and health professionals’ offices.   But now that the Time Timer Watch Plus® is out, I can see some wonderful uses for it (Look at the image to the left and you’ll see that I'm demonstrating how it even works in the dark!)  It will be especially effective for those on the move or for situations when having a desktop or wall-mountable version isn’t possible.  One of the best capabilities of the Time Timer Watch Plus® is that the red disc that represents the full allotment of time can be set to a customized amount of time from one minute up to 99 hours and 59 minutes.  This one factor alone increases the usefulness immensely.

One last thing worth mentioning is the effectiveness of using a Time Timer® with some children with special needs.  Because visual timing is so helpful for managing children who have been diagnosed with disorders on the autism spectrum, I can’t wait to suggest the Time Timer Watch Plus® to parents when it becomes available in children’s sizes.  

(NOTE: I have not been compensated by TimeTimer to write this blog post.  All of my comments contained here are based on my experience using their products and seeing the results for myself.  Please visit TimeTimer.com to learn more about what they have to offer.)